Student Work Commitment
This course requires between 8 to 12 hours per week in class-related work. About half will be in reading, and half in writing and responding to others' responses. This is a serious commitment - but it will be rewarding.
This course is a peer to peer learning experience. You must share your understandings with your classmates -- or you won't learn anything.
You will find a teammate to be your buddy in writing shared responses to the Case Scenarios.
There are three primary responsibilities in this course:
(1) Weekly Readings and Discussion Questions. Each week, students should complete the assigned readings, and discuss the relevant discussion questions with the other students in their group and with the course facilitators in Office Hours. You are not required to submit written answers to the discussion questions, but participating in a discussion of these topics will increase your understanding of the materials, and should also be a fun way to interact with your classmates! It will also help memorialize your thinking -- so you can go back and understand your own perceptions or misperceptions.
(2) Bi-Weekly Case Scenarios. Every two weeks, each team will be responsible for submitting a group response to a Case Scenario (for a total of three case scenarios). Online collaboration among group members is a key part of this course. Each week, you will meet with your partner to discuss the weekly readings and discussions, and to prepare your team response to each of the Case Scenarios.
The assigned readings and other resources will assist you in responding to the Case Scenario questions.
The team answer should demonstrate your understanding of the assigned reading material and should include original thoughts and synthesis. Don't just summarize the readings! Making connections between the week's readings and either previous readings or previous discussions is strongly encouraged.
Submitting team responses. Submit your team responses to the Case Scenarios in the Google forum for this class. Because this is a peer-to-peer learning experience, all participants will be expected to share your responses to the three Case Scenarios with the whole class on this forum. Your submissions are automatically licensed with a Creative Commons (Attribution ShareAlike) license so that the course organizers can use them for future courses and other educational uses. Of course, you will retain copyright to your answers and can re-use them how you want.
You may also use the same forum for discussion about the course as a whole, or discussions that don't fit into one of the sessions or assignments.
Badges. If your team completely answers the questions, and demonstrates understanding of the assigned reading material, then you will receive the badge for that unit. Congratulations! You've passed.
(3) Commenting on other teams' responses. Either as an individual or as part of your team, each of you are responsible for commenting on at least one other team's work. If you do it together, you will comment on two teams' assignments. (And try to pick one that hasn't gotten any comments yet, or only one comment.)
Do you think they got it right? wrong? missed something? had a novel insight? Let them know! This is "peer-to-peer" learning, and students learn from different approaches to the same problem, and others' responses to your work. Be constructive! Post your comments in the Google forum for this class.
Each of you should end up, therefore, with at least a couple of responses to your assignment from fellow students. This is invaluable feedback, because in addition to the copyright assessment, it lets you know if other people understand what you are writing.
Please feel free to check out -- and respond to! -- the discussion threads from the other students and teams as well. You'll appreciate the diversity, and you may make some new friends!